


Artificial Soul Chains

by audiosilver



Category: Bleach
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, College Ichigo, Hollow stuff, M/M, Multi, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-16
Updated: 2021-03-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 12:22:23
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 9,781
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29489736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/audiosilver/pseuds/audiosilver
Summary: It is so easy, to develop fondness, to trip over a word and a phrase in the moonlight and fall in love, and it is easier still to attribute that love to the smoke of circumstance.-All at once, Ichigo is faced with a reality that does not include soul reapers or hollows or constant battles; at least not for him. But he is Kurosaki Ichigo, so there is always something waiting for him to stumble headfirst into- or in this case, someone.
Relationships: Grimmjow Jaegerjacques/Kurosaki Ichigo/Hirako Shinji, Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Kurosaki Ichigo, Hirako Shinji/Grimmjow Jaegerjaques, Hirako Shinji/Kurosaki Ichigo
Comments: 14
Kudos: 75





	1. Severed ties and loose ends

Ichigo remembers high school as a fog. His first year is burnt into his memory, clear as day, every fight, every retreat, every moment spent in a headlong rush towards saving the people that he cared about and finding new people to care for along the way. He can't say he was the most affectionate or the most compassionate friend, or even the most thoughtful, but he retains in his phone numbers that don't exist anymore in this world, along with the memories that he has no proof are real other than a useless Shinigami substitute badge. Merely a piece of wood, now.

Things change, he knows this, he has always known it, but he had never expected for things to change in a way that left him empty and hapless. Nothing in the way that local punks fight does anything to revive the heat in his blood or the weight of Zangetsu in his hand, and the urge is always there, like a dull throb just under his skin that seethes onto the surface in a fit of jealousy breathlessly thick every time he sees his former friends rush to no doubt kill another hollow. 

Once, they could talk about that, they could train together, it was a part of their lives. Now, they have left him behind in that area, it is something they share and he doesn't.

But he finds a way to be as he always had, he still has Tatsuki and Keigo and Mizuiro, who now he has more time for. It's bittersweet that the reason for this time is a direct consequence of being removed from what he'd grown to be passionate about, but they don't seem to hold it against him. 

It exists as a fissure in their memories as well, something that is still a visible scar throughout high school, in direct contact with every place that jogs the memory of every event that brought them where they are. But he makes enough pocket money over hiring himself out to clubs that he opens a bank account to save it, and truly starts to feel like a human stuck in the human world with no greater worry than fiscal responsibility that he doesn't want to deal with. 

He applies to college, edging on a medical degree, counting on the span of time to put him in the right headspace to make a more selective decision, one he knows will fill the pit in his heart that is slowly growing into a chasm. Everything is in contrast with itself, his normalcy is like the dragging of nails on a chalkboard, his eternity long lost to a sacrifice he would have to make again. Kurosaki Ichigo, substitute shinigami, vizard, vasto lorde, Kurosaki Ichigo, college student. 

And of course, he gets in. 

The college is far enough that he has to leave at ass-o-clock in the morning to travel by train, and walk to the campus that is surrounded by hospitals, but he doesn't have any qualms about that. Not being in Karakura or being in high school anymore spares him from the direct assumption of delinquency and puts him in a uniquely new position of being completely adequate. That's all he is now. Normal. Adequate. Average.

What was special about him was ripped out of him with no thanks and no sorry, and left to rot in the rattle chambers of his nightmares still haunted by his own screams. His inner world had collapsed in on itself with the dissolution of his sword and his loyalty, and the draining of his reiryoku. He is nothing now, he is nobody. 

After a first semester of bleak nothing, he is officially on holiday, and the break does nothing more than remind him of the currently unusable aspects of his life that used to occupy time he now has way too much of. His friends are in town, or they should be, and he will call them, he will talk to them, just...not today. And today becomes tomorrow, and the day after. The sun rises, and it sets. His room, his heart, his life, they are empty. 

He doesn’t even remember what had been taught all semester, though he has no doubt he’ll find all of it in his textbooks; he remembers going to class and staring at a blackboard and waiting for the telltale ping letting him know of a hollow nearby, only it never came, in six months, it never came. He has classmates, he knows that, but he hadn’t spoken to a single one or found it in himself to talk to the faculty, he even had a lab partner whose face he cannot for the life of him remember. 

He has a research paper and a thick book to read, but all he does is sit on his roof in the cold evening air and wonder about a time he could walk through the skies. 

On Thursday, or at least he thinks it’s Thursday, his rendezvous with his rooftop is cut from its origins in loneliness.

"Ichigo," a voice interrupts his reminiscing, uncharacteristically jovial for what he is used to now, and he turns, eyes going wide. 

"Hirako?" He asks, standing up fast enough that his ankle slips on the tile and Hirako catches his wrist. It’s like the world had taken a screeching halt into clarity again, and he’s almost bashful at the feeling. A beat passes before he realizes the other man isn't even standing on the roof in the first place, a detail they both notice at the same time, and that is accompanied by the quiet thud of his western shoes on the ceramic shingles. 

Hirako Shinji, he remembers, backwards on a blackboard, tongue piercing and a smile so wide he could never believe it’s false pretences. And he’d been right, regardless, he’d trained and learned and Hirako had saved his and Rukia’s asses, but it had been like a tearing smudge in his memories. There was a warehouse? Somewhere? An angry blonde girl? 

They sit wordlessly, for Ichigo now has too many words on his tongue to force any out of his mouth, anything that could warrant an explanation that could possibly mean anything; but for the first time in so long, he can hear his heartbeat.

"Ya really lost yer reiryoku, huh?" Shinji asks, though it's more of an observation, and Ichigo doesn't answer. 

"'m not teasin'," he adds, quieter than Ichigo remembers him. 

He doesn't know what to say, but he is grateful for the arching thread to a life he doesn't live anymore. 

"How-," he starts, clearing his throat, "How is seireitei?" He shouldn't be asking, but he still wonders about his friends, about his time there, if it had meant anything, if they were happy. 

"Dunno," Hirako answers, and Ichigo turns to him. 

"What-"

"Not a shinigami, remember?" 

The admission is light and teasing, but Ichigo can hear that same hint of jealousy and of despair in his voice, the lost love of something he'd devoted more than just his life to. Both of them, apparently. 

He tries, for his life, to remember the names of the other Vizards, but he comes up painfully short, an empty ache in his throat. Hirako reads his question anyway, "We're okay, Ichigo." 

And he remembers, like a ghost, the words that he had brushed off so simply when he was younger.  _ You are one of us _ , Hirako had said,  _ you don't belong on that side _ . And he was right, Ichigo didn't, he could see the fear in the eyes of his shinigami comrades, mixed in parts of disgust at the exposure to his hollow mask, to his hollow self, but he had been too reckless and too ready for a fight to do anything more than disregard it. 

He leaves, and Ichigo expects for that to be all, for Hirako to never come back, especially since they had barely spoken. But he comes, almost every day, inexplicably. On the third day, Ichigo asks, throwing caution to the wind, "Why are you still in the living world?" 

The answer must be complicated, but it is linked to the reality that they are, obviously, dead. And yet, he can see Hirako clear as day and feel the faint warmth of his body in proximity. 

"Got nowhere else t' go," Hirako chuckles, "This world's all that'll accept us." 

"What do you mean?"

He gets in response, a deep seated sigh, and Hirako turns towards him, cheek resting on his knee, "We were banished from Soul society. For th’ hollows that live in us." 

"Banished?" He asks, as fearful as he is angry. So quick to anger, even after this long, on behalf of his friends. 

"Stripped of our ranks and our robes and sent out," he elaborates, and Ichigo feels heat in his blood. Maybe he is just like them. Even though he was the one to choose the sacrifice he had given, he can't help but feel like he lost so much more than his powers. None of his shinigami comrades ever came back to visit him, and even Kon was returned to Urahara's possession, a mod soul having no purpose in the home of a normal man. 

"Kisuke built us gigai," he blinks, and Ichigo's anger is dissipated by the sudden realisation that Hirako has blonde eyelashes. They're long, and thick, and whiter in the moonlight than he expected. 

"This is a gigai?" Ichigo doesn't dare to reach a hand out, doesn't dare to risk having it go through him like a ghost.

"Almost," There is a tune in that silence, one that is punctuated by Yuzu and Karin arguing with their father downstairs. 

"It's more like somethin' to chain us 'ere, t' this reality in the long term,"  _ since we can't go back _ .  _ Ever _ . 

For Ichigo it has been only a few years, barely half a decade, but for Hirako? For the other Vizards? It had been long enough he didn't even know they used to be shinigami initially. It is clear to him now, that Soul society doesn't honour those it abandons. There is not a trace of their group, even though he has no doubt more than one of them used to be a Captain. Possibly Hirako himself, impossible as it is to imagine, with his comedic and flighty nature. He wants to hear, really hear, the story of what happened, but he fears it may be that disquieting part of himself causing a wreckage in his chest again, for some semblance of connection to a life he is no longer part of. Hirako does, after all, still have his powers. 

What he does do, however, is ask, every day, about  _ how _ they are. If they're alright. If he can help. Hirako cuffs him on the shoulder and says he should focus on 'the learning that will let him live comfortably', as he put it, which is odd enough in phrasing to make him wonder how uncomfortable it had been once, for all of them to leave Soul society at once, to have a dozen weary companions and no roof to rest underneath. 

His initial impression is that Urahara helped them find their legs, but he doesn't even think they know each other, beyond the production of gigais that are perhaps as old as he is, if not more. He doesn't risk asking that question, though. 

Talking to Hirako nightly becomes something of an anchor in his day, a staple time, and he uses that single point of continuity to latch onto the rest of his work, starting on both his paper and his book. He doesn't really meet any of his friends, or even check his phone a lot. He thinks of doing so, multiple times a day, and is distracted by his sisters and his father and a slow creeping realisation of the routine of a mundane family, which at one point had been all he wanted. That point had passed with the realisation that his father was a shinigami as well, that he'd spent sixteen years lying to Ichigo and the last four pretending he hadn't. 

He doesn't know how he's supposed to act like he’s a normal person, seeing the things he's seen and having done the things he's done. It's not just a stray ghost that he'd encountered, he had fought in a  _ war _ , he had nearly sacrificed his life and the lives of his friends over and over for a good he doesn't even know if he still believes in. The senkaimon don't open for him any sooner than a gargantua would; but even that would mean he could see something. 

Every night, he closes his eyes and he dreams of swords and Zangetsu and black yukata, every day he thinks about the burrowing loneliness he is in without Kon and Tensa and his inner hollow clamoring constantly for his attention, without boisterous liveliness that he can't replace with textbooks and a laptop. 

The direction of his life is askew, and he has no points to hold to. 

On the last day of his vacation, Hirako is early. He brings candies, in a small box; they're jelly beans, the kind he would never buy in a million years because they are sickeningly sweet, but he accepts a handful anyway, sorting the colours in his palm and watching Hirako's mouth close over a bright blue. "Say, Ichigo," he starts, and he immediately has Ichigo's attention, mostly by virtue of not doing more than sitting together for the last hour. "I wanted ya t' know,'' he continues, when he has swallowed, when Ichigo has watched the bob in his throat too real for a gigai, "Yer always welcome with us." 

He hadn't cared for a promise like that, once, but he does now. It is not an empty pleasantry, he knows the viciousness with which the Vizards fight for their own, the time and patience they had all put into training him once, and hollowfication he still remembers in sensation so real it's tangible. He is not simply tolerated, he is not a soldier any longer, he is not disposable. He belongs. He is a Vizard. He may not have himself anymore in any sense but humanity, but he is one of them. The alternative would be that he is a Hollow, and he is not willing to accept that reality in his heart. 

He takes a pink jelly bean instead of answering and Hirako chuckles, pointing at some text on the back of the box about the meaning of pink being a hopeful crush. 

Ichigo laughs too, reaching for the blue one that conveys his apparent status as hopeful, making both of their lips upturn.

And then Hirako freezes. 

.

Grimmjow, once he is healed and whole again, isn't able to find satiation in chewing up weaker hollows and roaming around Hueco Mundo looking for a fight of some sort. Though he's glad for his newfound freedom, he doesn't know what to do with its implications. All he knows is to fight and to run and to eat, to tear other hollows limb from limb and taste the bitter shock of hollow blood on his tongue, of bones made of reiryoku alone, of shattered hierro remnants on skin that isn't real. Without that, without anywhere to go, without any upwards or forwards or direction, he is impossibly lacking in any sort of meaningful stimulation in his life. And this is one of those situations that has no solution, because all he  _ can _ do is eat weaker hollows, and sleep. He doesn't really need to do either of those. He's an Arrancar now. He's an  _ Espada,  _ now. 

Hueco Mundo does not have a timekeeper, of any sort, so he isn't sure how long has passed before he gets the genius idea to rip open a gargantua and find some stray shinigami to fight. Surely they will be more entertaining than menos or adjuchas. Maybe he'll find the orange haired shinigami again, Kurosaki? Something? 

He hasn't had to use Pantera's release in so long, he is  _ itching _ for a fight like that. 

When he steps into the living world, however, gargantua closing in a loud tear behind him, he feels...nothing. Occasional, muted wisps of reiryoku here and there, the odd half formed hollow because the shinigami never do their job, but no actual shinigami. Not a one. He can vaguely sense some sort of cage, or a barrier? Far off, but he remembers sensing and dismissing that years ago when he'd come here the first time. Unlike then, there is no spiking, wild presence, no shockingly massive force drawing his fighting instincts. 

Fair enough. Maybe Kurosaki-something learned to mask his pressure. Grimmjow will find him anyway. He starts in the South side of the city, walking slowly, and sniffing the air for the slightest hint of reiryoku, or any sort of shinigami scent, even that cracked and splintered version of a hollow scent that Kurosaki and the masked blonde had. That blonde never had a pressure he felt until he was buried in the ground under the weight of his reiatsu though. 

He walks for hours, pausing to watch the descent of the sun, something he doesn't have the luxury of seeing in a wasteland desert like Las Noches. And then, finally, in the darkness of what is possibly the middle of the night, he spots a splash of orange on the rooftop of a distant house. Grimmjow would never admit the sonido he used to get over there, teeth bared and eyes wide, drawing his sword in preparation to force Kurosaki to fight him somehow. 

"Kurosaki!" He shouts, so gleeful that his body is crackling with energy, pointing the end of his sword a mere foot away from his chest. The blonde is there too, he notices belatedly, stiffened up, but Kurosaki is not looking at him.

A moment passes, and then two, and Grimmjow opens his mouth to taunt Kurosaki into at least  _ saying  _ something, when the blonde not-hollow fixes him with a stare, "He can't see you." 

_ What. _

He has to be bluffing. 

Only, Kurosaki does not have his massive shinigami blade or robes, and though he looks older, he is not as fiery in temper. Just to tempt fate, he moves his sword forward, and still gets no reaction. 

"Hirako?" Kurosaki asks the blonde, turning so close to the blade that Grimmjow is now convinced of the statement that he somehow  _ cannot see him,  _ and he doesn't have a word for the emotion he's feeling right now. It's not helplessness and it's not anger and it's not frustration but it is an amalgamation of wanting so much more than he has and having only the empty sky.

"What's going on?" Kurosaki continues, noticing the continued attention of this Hirako in his direction. 

Grimmjow can hardly believe what he's hearing. The pounding in his ears only gets louder, forcing the wild grin away from his face, replaced with the shock of having come to realise just  _ how much _ can change in the world, a world where change is possible. Where not everything is grey. The part of him still convinced Kurosaki has to be lying is outweighed and outmatched by the very clear lack of awareness of both his sword and his person, something he would never expect from Kurosaki. 

"The blue haired arrancar. Sexta. He's pointin' a sword at ya." Hirako is not lying, but that still somehow makes him twinge, and he doesn't realize why until he sees the shift in expression on Kurosaki's face. 

Grimmjow is not perceptive by any means, but at this moment it's like he can hear Kurosaki's thoughts. Their last interaction, Kurosaki  _ saved _ him from an almost certain death. Their last interaction was not parted with hostility, and to Kurosaki, as was apparent in him rushing into Hueco Mundo for a friend, that meant something. Or it did, until just this moment. It's clearer still, that Kurosaki cannot even sense he is there. His eyes are glossy and far away, and the line of his mouth is set as he apparently searches the air for an invisible threat. 

_ Hurt _ , he realises, with some difficulty,  _ that expression is hurt _ .

Grimmjow is now faced with a unique problem of not being able to get through this with his own strength. There's no barrier to cross and no foe to fight. There is just the rooftop, and him, and Kurosaki who no longer looks at him. No longer sees him. He doesn't even realise that he hasn't moved at all until Shinji tugs free his still sheathed sword, using it to knock Pantera from Grimmjow's hand. Normally, he would kill someone for that, but when his sharp pupils meet Hirako's face, he loses all the will to think about anything other than the aftermath of this encounter. Kurosaki will never see him again, and the only impression he will leave is of an ungrateful prick who tried to fight an unarmed opponent. 

He shouldn't care, really, what is Kurosaki other than an opponent? Other than a fighting partner? Who is Hirako to touch his sword so casually? To dissuade him? 

Pantera clatters to the roof tile, the blade scraping over the surface, leaving drag marks that surely Kurosaki notices, though he doesn't remark on it more than a glance. 

He could so easily at any moment have stabbed Kurosaki. He was so close. Why didn’t he?

The air between them is tense, though not with reiatsu, or with the intent to fight or kill, a kind of tension Grimmjow doesn’t think he’s ever felt before. Kurosaki is staring at his socks, blue and bright and so ridiculously out of place, so unlike the black shihakusho he remembers. Hirako hasn’t broken his gaze yet, and were Grimmjow slightly more inclined towards self preservation he may have thought about their very obvious difference in strength, the unnatural cero he can still feel like lightning on his body. 

Hirako's eyes are telling him to  _ go _ , and in a moment of uncharacteristic obedience, he does, he feels compelled to, but he cannot bring himself to go far. He stays two roofs over, sure he is still being sensed, and lays down on the tiles. It takes him two, maybe three tries to properly look away. His eyes turn skyward to the living world's stars, that mean nothing to him, as much as he would like them to. He hears Hirako put away his sword sheath, hating the way his ears immediately perk up at the sound of their conversation. He can't quite make out more than the occasional word, though, and eventually, he stops trying to, content just to listen to the faint whisper of their voices and take in the unfamiliar moon. 

Hueco Mundo is a big place, far, far bigger than even he could imagine, but it bears no comparison to the expansive canopy of the living world's speckled skies and cotton clouds, loathe as Grimmjow is to admit something like that. 

He doesn't stir until he hears the telltale click of a latch being shut and locked, most likely Kurosaki's window. In that moment, he has a choice. He can go back to where they are, or he can go home. He doesn't want to do either of those. He even considers hollow hunting, but the ones in the living world are too weak to taste like anything more than frailty. 

It is only then that he starts to realise, for himself, that he needs something more than endless contingents of emptiness, more than looping cycles of hunt and kill, more than the reeling of his instincts, now suddenly unsure of why he came to be in front of Kurosaki's house. It's not just that he wants a good fight, they already fought, and he has no doubt if they fight again it will be more intense than the last time. 

Only this time, he cannot envision winning. Strength notwithstanding, he does not want to think about the consequences. The 'What's next', the uncertainty of adding someone who isn't even dead to the conquered hollows that constitute his body, to the remnants of the hogyoku. He does not want Kurosaki to die. Or maybe he does, but only so he turns into pure reishi, so that Grimmjow cannot be addled by the amalgamation of races convened in that one body. Something that the Kurosaki of right now apparently seems to be unable to use, or unable to even see, which frustrates him impossibly. There are  _ facets _ , to this, that he had been very blissfully unaware of when he'd left Las Noches. 

Eventually, he's thought himself in circles enough to feel dizzy, and he stands up, stretching out his legs. It's not like anyone can see him, anyway. Hirako has left, and Kurosaki's curtains are drawn, but Grimmjow takes his chance, crossing back over and sitting down on the window sill, eyeing the suspiciously placed ladder right there. Do people often climb into Kurosaki's room?

He doesn't want that kind of information, that kind of insight into Kurosaki's life. He doesn't  _ care _ **_._ **

"I'll be right there, Karin!" Kurosaki's voice calls, jolting Grimmjow out of his silent stewing. Karin?

"Open the window for a while, Ichi-nii, it's so stuffy in here," a woman's voice answers. Or maybe she's talking to someone else? Who's Ichi-nii?

Those questions dissipate when Kurosaki opens the window, forcing Grimmjow to hold onto the ladder instead. Kurosaki has a younger sister. He didn't want to know that. And then his face appears past the curtains, closer than Grimmjow thought he'd get. He looks tired, but content; less anger than he had once and more acceptance. 

"Kurosaki," Grimmjow tries again, feeling more than ridiculous. He doesn't get an answer. 

Something compels him to follow when Kurosaki retreats into the room, so Grimmjow follows, ever curious, half his body inside the room when he perches on the windowsill. It's a very lived-in room; a neat looking desk, a bed, even a cupboard. He thinks, with amusement, that all living world inhabitants have so many things, and he nips that amusement in the bud because he is not here to be concerned about Kurosaki or his life. He cannot fight. He cannot see Grimmjow. 

Or so it was supposed to be, until he turns towards Grimmjow, and looks him directly in the face. If he had a heart, it would have stopped. Only...Kurosaki is not looking at Grimmjow or his face, he's looking far away, and the arrancar just happens to be in that direction. 

"Ichi-nii!" The woman's voice calls again, further away, and Kurosaki rips his gaze away, "Coming!" 

He's out the door then, leaving Grimmjow alone in his room. 

The vulnerability digs into his palms, still pressed into the ledge of the window, and his eyes go wide. He could do anything, if he wanted to, he could tear down the room, maybe even the entire house if he was feeling particularly destructive, but he does nothing. He sits where he is, motionless and more agitated than he thought he was even capable of being. Is there an answer for this? Is there a direction he’s supposed to go? Who does he turn to? 

Nobody enters the room for long enough that he climbs into it, curiosity winning over his knowledge that he’s doing something really stupid. It smells of something clean, the source of which he discovers inside the cupboard, in piles of folded clothes. He can also smell some kind of liquid in various objects on the table, all of which he looks over, skittishly. There’s a jacket over the back of the chair, purple and lined with fur, that makes him growl until he touches it and realises right away that it’s not real fur. He isn’t sure how he knows, just that it doesn’t feel like  _ real _ anything. 

Grimmjow is crouched besides the bed, reading a book that was hidden under it when the door creaks. He hisses, having gotten invested in whatever strange mating rituals the two people on the pages were doing, but quietly puts the book down anyway. He can hear his own swallow, when Kurosaki walks into the room, and Grimmjow feels a lot like a deer in headlights until he remembers he cannot be seen or touched. With this knowledge, he feels a lot more comfortable sitting himself down in front of the chair, watching Kurosaki go to open the cupboard. He doesn’t move, for several moments, and Grimmjow starts to think he noticed it had been ruffled through, until he calls out, “Yuzu! Have you seen my grey pyjamas?”   
“They’re washed, Ichi-nii!” Another voice calls out. Kurosaki has two sisters, then. 

“I thought you’d want them,” The voice from earlier answers- Karin, he remembers begrudgingly- pushing open the door. Another human, with black hair and a strong facial resemblance to Kurosaki, arms full of grey fabric that’s probably whatever Kurosaki asked for. Pyjamas?

And then, Karin looks at him. Really  _ looks _ , because her eyes go wide, and Kurosaki turns as well, no doubt curious what she’s looking at. “What is it?” He asks, taking the clothes from her, and Grimmjow slaps a hand over his mouth, glaring menacingly at her. 

“...nothing, Ichi-nii,” she probably picked up that he can’t see Grimmjow, and chose to let it be. Thank fuck.

Kurosaki shrugs it off as well, shutting the door behind her when she goes and walking towards the desk. Grimmjow barely manages to dart out of the way, almost having to use a sonido for a mere few steps to keep from touching anything that could alert the ex-shinigami to his presence. He doesn’t want to take the risk anymore, exhilarating as it is to have something  _ new _ to do, he’d rather be around someone who can actually see him. 

Still quiet, he climbs back up on the windowsill, cursing under his breath when he has to push away the curtains to get out, and immediately whirling around to see if Kurosaki noticed. He clearly didn’t. He’s still facing away from Grimmjow, and his fingers are curled into the hem of his t-shirt, pulling it upwards just as Grimmjow turns away to leave. 

Hirako saw him, spoke to him, and has the potential to be at least a good fight if talking to him doesn’t work out. So that is where Grimmjow is going.


	2. Wandering and getting nowhere

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Grimmjow doesn't know if he's lost or searching, if he is with purpose or without destination, or even if he has the intention to find out.

Grimmjow would absolutely say he's the best at reiatsu tracking. His time as an adjucha taught him heavy reliance on senses other than sight, and reiatsu can be sensed quite particularly with the right kind of attunement. He could recognize Kurosaki's reiatsu easily; when he had it, it had been explosive. 

Hirako, however, leaves not a single drop in his trail. He searches around Kurosaki's house, the roof, the direction he heard him use his flash step in, and he finds nothing but a hint of unique smell. It smelled...clean. He tries that as well, searching for similar scents, and finds three different close by balconies before he manages to piece together that the scent must be from the clothes and not from Hirako himself. So really, back to square one. 

With no options and slowly growing annoyance, he sits down to think about it. Thinking, however, is not his strong suit. He’s always been the type to act first; and he trusts his impulses in the face of death, but actually having to formulate a  _ plan  _ for something is really not his style. 

He watches some kids play on the road with marbles, wondering if he was ever that lame whenever he was a human, and decides that he probably was. All humans are kinda lame. Unlike the dull overcast skies of Hueco Mundo, however, the surroundings of the living world change constantly. The sun lights up the sky from far away, and moves up right above his head as the day passes, leaving him to wonder how he even knows what a sun is. He just knows some things about the living world, he’s never questioned why he knows them. 

Sitting on a rooftop becomes laying on the rooftop, because he didn’t anticipate the heat that would accompany the brightness of the sky above him, and it makes him want to curl up and close his eyes, so he does, taking his jacket off and draping it over his face to block out the harshest of the light. Maybe when he wakes up he will have some sort of idea, of what to do or where to go that doesn’t involve going back to Hueco Mundo just yet.

He doesn’t. He wakes up even warmer than before; but the sun above him is dimmer now, so he manages to get up, draping his jacket over his arm and rubbing at his eyes, ignoring the slight itch in his palms from the heat and standing up. He’s never taken a nap that satisfying, actually, he doesn’t think he’s ever taken a nap at  _ all _ since he died. He doesn’t need to sleep either, but that had been part of a kind of routine Aizen insisted they follow, and it had since become ingrained into his own routine. 

He’s immediately thankful that he isn’t visible to anyone around him, because the streets are bustling now, filled with humans of all ages, and even a few animals. 

Grimmjow rubs the back of his neck and jumps down from the roof, landing between an old lady who doesn't even flinch, and a girl with black hair, who looks directly at him, but curls into herself immediately. Odd. 

He doesn't care to deal with that right now, so he starts off walking towards the barrier he'd been sensing, following very faint tendrils of reiatsu. Whoever it is must be either very weak or very good at masking, and only one of those options is remotely enticing to him. 

Once he's walked for long enough that he's starting to get bored, he feels a sudden spike, large enough to have him whipping around and darting off with his sonido in half a moment, coming up on a young man with a bow, and the dead hollow in front of him dissipating. The bow is made of reiatsu too, which he thinks is pretty impressive, though he’d never admit to thinking that.

"An Espada…," the young man says when he spots Grimmjow, seemingly having a realisation, and Grimmjow grins at him. Good. He knows who he is. 

But, he doesn't shoot. The archer puts his bow down, fastening a necklace in place and standing back on the ground. "What are you doing here?" He asks instead, fixing the glasses on his face. Odd, again. Szayel never needed to push his up. 

Grimmjow refuses to try and justify his reasons, he's not doing anything, he's searching, maybe, but he doesn't even know for what. 

"Why? You looking for a fight?" He spits out, hand on the hilt of his sword, and the young man scoffs, "I don't have that kind of time to waste. Ask someone else." 

What sense does that make? A perfectly good fighter, a reiatsu archer at that, and he doesn't want to fight? Humans are  _ weird _ . 

Maybe, if he cared more about the answer, he would ask himself the same question, ask why his only instinct is always to draw his sword and to hunt, to eat and search and kill and conquer, why answers like that and people walking away from him leave him with a pit in his chest and a sour taste in his mouth. But it doesn’t matter. Fighting and winning have never failed him before, and it will not now.

He tells himself it’s out of curiosity, when he walks along in the direction of the archer, though he isn’t really following him, since he’s long gone. He’s just...meandering. It feels like he’s guarding a territory he doesn’t even own, and he doesn’t like that. Somehow, as he wanders along, he senses another being with reiryoku enough to peak his interest, and rounds the corner with another quick sonido, sword already halfway out the sheath when he spots a young woman in the center of the road waving at something in a giant metal box. 

Grimmjow jumps when the box starts to move, and hisses when it speeds away. What the fuck is that?    
  
“Who’re you? Why you got a sword?” The woman asks him, eyeing him skeptically. Her hair is black, and spiky, a little bit like Kurosaki’s. 

“My name is Grimmjow Ja-”   
“Ah, you’re one of those people who aren’t really there huh.” She sighs, rubbing the back of her neck, and Grimmjow growls at her, whipping his sword out. He’s about to ask what the fuck she means by that, but then she walks directly towards him, calmly, closes her eyes and continues right  _ through _ him. He didn’t think that was possible. 

He stands there, frozen,  _ again _ , for several moments before he has the wits to sheath his sword and whip around, but the woman is already gone. He can sense her walking away, but this time, he isn’t inclined to follow. He feels sick. 

Maybe it was because she wasn't looking at him, for that split second, her reiryoku dwindled to nothing, but it makes him feel a new kind of empty to know that people can close their eyes and he doesn't exist anymore. It makes him feel uniquely inconsequential, and it immediately creates a newfound home in his previously very limited range of emotions. He came here, to the living world, for a fight, not to feel like shit, and he doesn't know why he's staying when he could so easily go back.

No, really, he does know. Going back there is nothing for him, but staying here is new, even if it is new in all the wrong ways. He's not an optimist by any means, but he is almost fatally curious when that curiosity is weighed against boredom. 

So he keeps walking, turning back without his sonido, to the distant and faint barrier. 

The buildings around him get smaller as he goes, no more multi story houses and department stores, and eventually he sees nothing behind the walls lining the streets, which doesn't necessarily mean nothing is there. It's ominous. He doesn't like it. He wants to fight head on, not be snuck up on. 

The day sky has turned orange again, fading on a pink that makes him loathe to admit is pleasing, when the sensation of the barrier stops being distant. It's almost a sudden shock, just a moment ago the barrier had seemed days walk away, and all at once it is here practically right in front of his face. It's a confusing effect, but what's even more confusing is that it's just a run-down, dusty clearing.

There's a shop, in the dusty clearing, and he can't tell if it's open at all, even the sign board is dusty. He closes his eyes, trying to focus only on the barrier and inside of it, breathing in the reishi of the living world that is somehow fresher and lighter than in Hueco Mundo, but it's no use. He can't sense a damn thing inside of the barrier, it's like a solid wall. 

Seeing no use in wasting his efforts, he decides to try the opposite thing and bring the inside of the barrier to him. He takes another deep breath, and pumps out as much reiatsu as he can, bright and bold and striking in its bloodlust, a challenge for anyone who can feel it. 

There is no change, for a few moments, and Grimmjow is about to tone it down when a red headed boy runs out of the store. He's about Grimmjow's shoulder height, and his cheek has a bandaid on it. 

"Who are ya?!" The boy glares at him, eyebrows furrowed into a heavy set scowl, and Grimmjow pulls his sword. "Grimmjow Jaegerjacquez, the Sexta Espada," he introduces, grinning wildly.  _ Finally _ . 

"Yeah?! I can take ya!" He shouts, bringing a wooden bat into Grimmjow's field of view that he didn't notice before, "I'm Hanakari Jinta." 

Grimmjow doesn't wait for him to spit out any more of an introduction before he uses his sonido, sword swinging along in an arc to strike Jinta's shoulder, intercepted by a loud yell and the aforementioned bat stopping his Pantera in place. 

They both jump back, and Grimmjow flicks his wrist, his leg muscles tensing for another strike when he feels a quick jab to his neck, the sensation of falling, and everything fades at once. 

\--- 

Grimmjow wakes up to the smell of green tea and the sound of laughter. It's incredibly peculiar, he almost thinks he's died, if it's even possible for him to have something positive, let alone die as a hollow. 

The next thing he registers is that he's on something soft, and that his wrists are bound tightly. Pantera is placed neatly on tatami mats right in front of him, and he grabs the scabbard between his teeth, kicking and squirming himself upright. 

"Ah, Kisuke, he's awake," a voice answers from the room adjacent, and Grimmjow jumps back into a crouch when the door slides open.

"Whoa, whoa, no need for all this!" A suspiciously cheery voice calls at him, accompanied by a seemingly innocuous face. The guy is waving too, like Grimmjow doesn't see him, and it makes him wary. He knows this type, that play a harmless and carefree façade over an untrustworthy and conniving personality. Ichimaru Gin was this way. He does not trust this man. 

"I won't hurt you at all- ah, Yoruichi-san, maybe you should get in here?" The man turns his messy blonde locks to the half open doorway behind him. It's a duller, dustier blonde than Hirako's, he notes, without real consequence. 

"Mm? What, he gonna bite?" The first voice calls, pushing the door open wider and entering the room, sitting down with a sharp jab of her obviously immense reiatsu. This must be who brought him in here and bound his hands. 

"Y'can sit there with that sword in your mouth if you want, but none of us is gonna take it, " she shrugs, and somehow, Grimmjow believes her words over the artificially nervous man next to her, fiddling with the knot of his yukata. 

"I'm Shihoin Yoruichi," she adds, not waiting for him to drop the sword, "This idiot is Urahara Kisuke. He owns the shop." 

The shop. From earlier. He must be inside it then, which would explain why he doesn't feel the barrier anymore. "You were lurking outside shooting out some massive reiatsu pulses, so we couldn't let Jinta deal with you alone." 

Grimmjow cautiously opens his mouth, making sure the sword drops on his knees close enough that he can grab it again with his teeth if he needs to. "He told us your name was Grimmjow something," Yoruichi continues, and the lack of expectation for a response soothes his raised hackles a little bit. 

"Jaegerjacquez. Grimmjow Jaegerjacquez," he mumbles, trying to ignore the odd sense of relief at being spoken to, or at, rather. 

"Espada, right?" Yoruichi continues, making a vague gesture at the gaping hole in his middle, and Grimmjow nods. He almost had the instinct to shrug. 

"I came here because there was a barrier," he cuts in before she can pose the question, and Urahara nods vacantly, "Mm...that's Tessai's barrier. Not completely invisible, but almost ignorable."

"Invisible?" He whips around. Barriers can be completely invisible?

"Mm. Hachigen's barrier is pretty undetectable," he continues to nod, as if Grimmjow has any idea what he's even saying. 

"What are you searching for with a low reiatsu barrier," Yoruichi snaps her fingers loud enough to drag his attention away from Urahara and back to her as she leans back on bandaged palms. Her gaze is so piercing he takes it as a challenge not to break the eye contact, one that she does not shirk from. 

"Not what," he grits out, ignoring Urahara's attempts at deflection, "Who." 

"Maybe we could ask Hirako," Urahara points out, and both of them turn to him simultaneously. 

"Ah- did a strike a nerve? Did he not give your shampoo back, Yoruichi-san?"

"Hirako? As in, blonde hair, slim, my chin height?" Grimmjow never stood close enough to actually know that, but he can guess, he's good at guessing those things. 

"Yeah! You know him? Oh, wait, you're an Espada, did you fight him?" 

He did, once, but it was so long ago and not even related to why he's searching now. Why is he searching now?

"Kisuke-dono, the tea is ready," a moustached man appears in the doorway, warily looking around. 

"Ah, thank you, can you bring it in here?" He smiles openly, and Yoruichi follows suit. If Grimmjow wanted to he could have killed them just then; their faces were turned and necks exposed. He doesn't. 

"Get this fucking bind off me," he growls, sensing the source in the moustached man. The man in turn looks to Urahara, only confirming Grimmjow's suspicions that he is not as flippant as he seems. 

Urahara nods, opening a fan in his palm as Grimmjow feels the bindings vanish, granting him the freedom to flex his arms and properly pick up his sword. The changes are subtle, but he sees them. The way Yoruichi lays her foot flat on the mat, the way Kisuke raises the right side of his hip enough. He pays them no mind, and sits down, replicating Yoruichi's reiatsu pulse and keeping his hand on the hilt of his sword. 

Urahara waits, after this, until Tessai has set down a tray with three cups of tea, to speak again. He does so from behind his fan, leaving his expression unreadable, "The 'who' that you were looking for," he punctuates this gap with a slight narrowing of his eyes, "That was Hirako, wasn't it?"

Grimmjow doesn't answer, but he raises his lip in an obviously hostile snarl, interrupted only by Yoruichi crossing the gap between them and sitting herself down next to Grimmjow, patting his thigh and picking up one of the cups. It's such an out of place and random action that he startles, cocking his head at her. 

"So what, he probably got a crush," she shrugs, winking at him, and if Grimmjow had any hope of answering, it's gone now. 

Urahara's seriousness dissolves with Grimmjow's sputtering because that's _ not _ it and he's looking to  _ fight _ , and-

And?

"Tessai will give you directions," Urahara's wishy washy smile is back, and Grimmjow huffs quietly. He's glad, probably, to have directions, but frustrated that he wasn't able to find the place on his own. Or figure out whatever this Hachigen's invisible barrier was. 

"But," he adds, something like caution in his voice, "Hirako Shinji is not someone to be taken lightly." 

Grimmjow knows this, he guessed it from the cero that Hirako shot at him. Shinji, is his name. "The Vizards won't take kindly to hostility, " Urahara warns, and this time there is real concern. 

"Vizards?" Grimmjow retains an equal measure of caution when posing the question, and Yoruichi stabs a kunai into the ground near Urahara's knee so casually he doesn't even notice it until Urahara jumps back. 

"Enough, Kisuke," she says, calmly, ignoring Urahara's indignant screeching about  _ dangerous _ and  _ tatami _ and  _ fix it _ , "That's for Hirako to tell him." 

He doesn’t push further, in no small part because Yoruichi actually made him doubt just then if he would be able to draw his sword by the time she stabs him. He doesn’t think he could. 

\---

Tessai draws him a map, when he realises that Grimmjow has absolutely no hope of understanding directions based on names of roads or landmarks in this city. Even then, the first rendition of the map has to be scrapped because it’s far too complicated for Grimmjow to read, full of tiny intricate details and markings. 

The second time, Jinta shows up, and watches over Tessai’s shoulder, pointing at random shapes when they’re drawn on the page. Not that Grimmjow has a single clue what they’re saying, it might as well be a different language. He only really gets it when Jinta hands Tessai a red coloured marker, and Tessai nods sagely, starting to draw arrows on the map beginning with an indication of where they are now. Grimmjow doesn’t understand why they didn’t just do that in the first place.

“So I gotta reach this thing,” Grimmjow points to a space on the map, where Tessai has drawn a big ‘X’ shape. 

“Yer real stupid, for a strong guy,” Jinta chuckles, and Grimmjow’s sword is halfway out the sheath when Tessai binds him again, knocking him down with a quietly tacked on, “Sorry, Grimmjow, can’t have you hurting our Jinta.”

  
“Tell him to shut the fuck up, then,” Grimmjow groans, focusing his energy on building up a cero where the reiatsu binding has him immobilised at the arms.    
“No need for all that,” Tessai releases him when he spots the cero, and Grimmjow is distracted by the sudden follow through of his earlier motion enough to dissipate the energy he’d built up. 

“Here you go, come right back if you get confused, okay? I’m sure Kisuke-dono and Yoruichi-dono will be more than willing to help if you do,” Tessai pats his shoulder, and Grimmjow expects for it to hurt, like some sort of amicable test of strength, but it’s just a momentary weight of his palm. For...seemingly no reason. 

He takes the map, holding it out right in front of his face and tilting his head at it, trying to memorise the directions so he isn’t too preoccupied with staring at the piece of paper, incase he has to fight someone. 

Paper folded and pocketed, and Pantera fastened at his hip, Grimmjow is off with not more than a nod in Tessai and Jinta’s direction, confident in his memory of where to go until he ends up at four separate dead ends and it’s dark again outside. Not that this darkness has any real effect, what with the streetlamps every few meters and houses lit up from the inside, illuminating the streets with the spillage out of open windows.

Annoyance pours off him in waves as he pulls out the paper, grumbling to himself and stomping in what he thinks is the right direction this time. He continues to think so, until a very loud series of connected metal boxes pass barely a foot from his face, accompanied by the sound of metal scraping and a kind of horn that should have been sounded before it passed him. He stares after it, noting that parts of the metal boxes are lit up from the inside, and have windows. Perhaps they are like the metal box the woman was talking to earlier, and there are people inside.

“Um...you’ll attract hollows, sir,” a timid voice breaks his thought process, along with a gentle tug to the bottom of his shirt so  _ absent _ of all hostility that he doesn’t even whip around in shock of being snuck up on. 

“Who are you?” Grimmjow turns towards the girl. She has long black hair and looks oddly familiar, and her cheeks are flushed brighter than her pale skin. 

“I-I just thought you could use some...help,” She sounds so completely afraid even Grimmjow crouches down, trying to get her to calm down. It’s not like he’d kill anyone this weak and frightened. She blinks at him, wide eyes turning towards the paper in his hand and pointing at a particular spot, just a single road away from Urahara’s shop.    
  
“This is where you are...I could feel your reiatsu spiking, and I, well, I wanted to warn you,” She doesn’t even look him in the face, but Grimmjow is grateful for the help. It’s a lot better than returning to the shop and admitting he couldn’t even follow such a simple set of directions. 

“Thank you,” He tries his best to take the bite out of his voice, wincing when the girl flinches anyway. “Y-you’re welcome,” She nods, pointing to a side road he had completely missed, “It’s that way.”   
  
He nods, standing up and copying what Tessai did earlier, putting his palm on her shoulder for barely a moment before he starts off along that road. This time, however, he swallows his pride and keeps the map in his hand, tracing along the red arrows as he goes. He has no way of knowing if he’s going in the right direction, but he doesn’t meet any more dead ends or moving metal boxes where there are supposed to be turns so he takes that as some sort of sign. 

The last road is straight, and the marking on the map is on the right side of the drawn street, which is good because there are no streetlamps on this road. He could probably try to look at the map anyway, but he’d have to try harder, and he doesn’t want to expend that kind of focus. 

Grimmjow slips the paper back into his pocket, trying again to detect any kind of presence and coming up empty. There’s nothing here. Not a drop. Still, he walks down the empty road, wondering why today’s night is darker than the previous one. Or the one before that. 

And then, where there was nothing, all at once there is a presence barely two feet from him. Maybe this is something that’s common in the living world, hiding until the last possible moment. He doesn’t bother looking before he’s drawn Pantera again, this time fully prepared to actually use it, and grinning when he hears the swing of another blade. Good, it seems like the other person is too. The figure is too short to be Hirako, so it must be one of his companions. Maybe this is Hachigen. Maybe they’re like fraccione. 

But, because his luck in the living world is lower than when he was a fucking gillian, Grimmjow is stopped again, this time by a massive pressure weighing down on him hard enough to crack the concrete under his feet and all but bring him to his knees. He didn’t even  _ know _ spiritual pressure could be like that.

Then again, after coming to the living world, he seems to not know a lot of things. Things he intends to figure out, things he doesn't care about, things he doesn't want to know a single thing about, and this, this specific category of strengths that are terrifyingly unknown to him even with all his long dead existence.

“What th’ fuck’re ya doin’ here?” Hirako’s voice is low, and though he is quiet Grimmjow feels it in his bones. He doesn’t have an answer. He can’t think of an answer. He knew he had one earlier but it slipped through his fingers and he isn't even aware of anything other than the weight of this pressure, let alone capable of remembering excuses. It doesn’t mean he’s not hostile, however, as Hirako seems to take it, if his releasing the pressure on Grimmjow is an indicator. He proves his hostility immediately by using his sonido to shove Hirako back into the compound wall, pressing the sharp edge of Pantera to his neck. 

Hirako looks so nonplussed it  _ irritates _ him, so he curls his fingers around Hirako's neck in a tight grip below the edge of his blade, snarling at him, trying to force him to meet Grimmjow’s eyes.    
“Y’wanna try a little harder?” Hirako raises an eyebrow at him, tipping his head back and fully baring his throat. Grimmjow's eyes go wide in surprise, and again, he doesn’t have an answer for that, other than to dismiss the immediate instinct to bite his skin. 

That absolute confidence ruffles him up more than it should, because he knows it doesn't stand on idle ground, it comes from strength that Grimmjow has experienced first hand. It's such a thrilling feeling, to be on the receiving edge of a threat so brazen, to not be assured of victory, to not be looked down on. So he loosens his grip. 

Hirako, however, isn't even looking at him anymore. He's scuffing his shoe against the ground as if he can see something Grimmjow cannot. "Do I hav'ta ask again?" Hirako slips his hands into his pockets, and Grimmjow thinks maybe he has an answer. And that answer is that he has no answer. 

"I don't know where else to go," he feels his knuckles brush the wall, thumbing over Pantera's guard. "Hueco Mundo is...gets boring, killing and eating gillian all the time," he shrugs, and then his eyes go even wider when Hirako takes hold of the sword end of the blade nonchalantly, pulling it away from himself, "So ya decided to find me." 

"Who's the stray?" Another far-too-nonchalant voice asks, and Grimmjow growls in that direction, only to be distracted by Hirako directing his sword back into its sheath. 

"Espada," Hirako looks fully in the direction of the two fingers, and Grimmjow notices the black creeping out of his sclera. That's another moment he had fully exposed his neck and himself to any kind of attack, but Grimmjow doesn't know if it makes a difference with someone that strong. Not that he isn't willing to try.

"Espada? What's he doing here?" Another women with glasses on steps into his field of view, ahead of the obscured figure that still has their sword drawn. 

He expects Hirako to laugh at him, to repeat what he said in a mocking tone, he expects for his temper to be flared up and to be angry enough that he gets into a fight with all of them. Hirako does no such thing. He places a hand on Grimmjow's arm, curling around him but with no pressure intended to actually break the limb like he tensed up to avoid. 

"Y'can join us," Hirako grins at him, just unsettling enough that Grimmjow is inversely comforted by it. This declaration however, is met by a screeching indignant enough for Hirako to add on, "If y'can hold yer own against Hiyori f'r a few minutes." 

His accent is thicker than Gin's, and Grimmjow can see a hint of something on his tongue, so distracted by it that he doesn't realize there is a silent question being passed. Or a silent offer. Both of which he intends to accept, once he finds the words to do so.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Aka Grimmjow is a grumpy lost cat the saga.  
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter! I'm a bit slow at writing these days, but I'll try to update as soon as possible! Comments and kudos certainly help me to feel loved and give me motivation to continue.

**Author's Note:**

> this is going to be very long but hello hi welcome to the premise of this fic!  
> i hope you enjoyed it! comments and kudos give me endless joy.


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